What it Takes to be a Biomedical or Clinical Entrepreneur

by Arlen Meyers

Biomedical or clinical entrepreneurs are not just doctors, scientists and engineers who create businesses.

Instead, they are those who pursue opportunity with scarce resources under conditions of uncertainty with the goal of creating user defined value through the deployment of biomedical or clinical innovation. As such they can assume many roles in the value creation pipeline such as technopreneurs, intrapreneurs (employees acting like entrepreneurs) ,social entrepreneurs, investors or small-medium size business owners.

Almost every health professional, scientist and engineer has a good idea. Unfortunately, that is all it will be because they don’t know what to do with their idea and the are unlikely to learn how during their formal training. Here are some tips on what to do next.

Very few medical schools or resident training programs, if any, teach medical students or residents the business of science and medicine and that is a big mistake, since learning how to create user defined value is as important and difficult as practicing state of the art medicine. The curriculum is the traditional one, guided by learning objectives and the secret one, including network development, people skills and learning how to play the game, which, in my opinion, is a bigger determinant of success than the grades on your transcript.

Unfortunately, few doctors, scientists or engineers have the package. But, those that do are creating great things for patients, themselves, their regional economies and US global competitiveness.